2013: A (rainbow) milestone year in LGBT history

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For gay- and transgender-rights supporters, 2013 was a year that brought long-awaited rulings and long-fought-for changes in the law that set the stage for new battles over rights in 2014.

“As the year has gone on, things have gotten better and the light has gotten brighter,” said Shane’a Thomas, a USC adjunct professor of social work and an individual and family therapist specializing in LGBT issues.

But Washington wasn’t the only place where same-sex marriage was getting the green light. It was legalized in Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Hawaii and New Mexico, bringing to 18 the number of states that allow it either through a vote or a court decision. The state of Utah announced Friday that it would be asking the Supreme Court to overturn lower courts’ rulings that legalized gay marriage in that state.

Thomas believes that after the dust settles states will see same-sex marriage as a boon to the bottom line.

“I think they’re going to see a big financial benefit,” Thomas said. “Now they’re going to go to Hawaii to get married. This is a business — it’s all about money in the end.”

Same-sex marriage was also legalized in England, France and Brazil in 2013.

As attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals changed, driven in part by changing demographics, Exodus International, which advertised that it could convert homosexuals into heterosexuals, closed its doors.

In California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1266, which allows public school students access to programs and facilities based on the gender they identify with, rather than the sex they were born into.

Ontario resident Christy Musser said she plans to take two of her three school-age children out of public schools.

Her oldest son will remain in high school where he is a sophomore, but Musser said her eighth-grade daughter feels so uncomfortable about a transgender student coming into the restroom or locker room that she distributed fliers about the referendum at school.

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“At this time in their lives, these kids are young, innocent and are just learning about themselves and their bodies, and they don’t need to worry about boys coming in the locker room and looking at them, or vice versa,” she said.

Those fears are unfounded, said San Diego school board President Kevin Beiser.

In the absence of statewide guidance, schools have been dealing with this challenge “in a very delicate, thoughtful and compassionate manner for many years,” he said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District — the state’s largest — has had a policy similar to the new law since 2005. The San Francisco Unified School District has had one since 2003. This month, the school boards in Berkeley, Sacramento and Pacifica followed suit.

“This idea that schools will let a student walk into whatever bathroom they want is baloney,” said Beiser, a high school math teacher in a San Diego area district.